Handel -〈Water Music〉1717 / Alla Hornpipe - Suite No. 2 in D major, HWV 349 (Ton Koopman) - YouTube Handel -〈Water Music〉1717 / Alla Hornpipe - Suite No. 2 in D major, HWV 349 (Ton Koopman) Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Apr 17, 2010 Georg Friedrich Händel (1685~1759) 《Wassermusik》orchestersuiten, HWV 348-350 (1717) Suite Nr.2 D-dur, HWV 349 - 2.

Alla Hornpipe - Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra Ton Koopman (conductor) In 1725 Handel's publisher Walsh included the Water Music overture (in Ｆmajor) in his Third Collection of Handel's overtures - the first appearance of any of the music in print - and arrangements of several movements were included in a collection of Handel's minuets published by Walsh in 1729. In 1734 Walsh issued a set of orchestral parts for what he called the Celebrated Water Musick, but in fact the publication contained only about half the movements. A complete version of the suite in the form of a transcription for solo harpsichord was issued by Walsh in 1743. Arnolds edition of 1788 was the first to present all the numbers in full score. This erratic publication history, coupled with the unfortunate loss of the original autographs, leaves several aspects of the Water Music open to question. Contemporary manuscript copies suggest solutions to some problems, but their evidence is sometimes contradictory. Any further discussion must begin with an attempt to clarify how the Water Music came to be composed.

Though the Daily Courant and Bonet both say that Handel wrote the music specifically for the water party of 1717 it seems probable that some parts of it had been composed earlier for other purposes. It is difficult to believe, for example, that the overture, with its delicate writing for two solo violins, could have been conceived with outdoor performance in mind. The Water Music may have started life as two independent orchestral suites or concertos scored for woodwind and strings only. In 1717 Handel could simply have combined these and added the movements with horns and trumpets, which are obviously suited to outdoor performance. The music itself provides a brilliant conspectus of the full range of Handel's style in the period of his first opera for England. As occasional music combining quality with immediate appeal it was not rivalled until Handel provided his Music for the Royal Fireworks of 1749.

It seems that Handel, always ready to exploit a new orchestral effect, introduced French horns into an English orchestra for the first time in the Water Music, immediately perceiving how to make the best use both of the bright Ｆhorns - on their own, in conjunction with the oboes - and of the lower pitched D horns - reinforcing the trumpets or antiphonally echoing them. The very English Country Dance, with the main tune presented in the middle of the harmony, is a charming tribute to the country in which he chose to settle, and like all the tunes in the suite cannot now be heard without happily evoking Hanoverian England in its most genial aspects. - Written by Anthony Hicks - Handel - Water Music - Classic FM Become a VIP Handel - Water Music Handel 's Water Music is made up of three orchestral suites, written for an outdoor performance for King George I on the Thames. Handel composed his wonderfully jolly Water Music around 1717. and it was first performed on 17 July that year, after George I requested a concert on the River Thames. The king watched from the royal barge with various dukes and duchesses as the 50 musicians played nearby.

The suites are pretty easy on the ear and jauntily life-affirming. Exactly the sort of music you would like to waft you down the River Thames if you were a king with the weight of government on your shoulders; in fact, the king enjoyed the music so much, he asked the musicians to play the suites three times over the course of the trip down the river. Packed with catchy and famous tunes (you'll probably recognise at least one!), each movement is based on a dance style. There's actually no set order for the suites to be performed, but it's generally agreed the first is in F major, the second is in D, and the third is in G. It’s Suite No. 1 that is the most popular. In eleven sections, it begins with a beautiful French-style Ouverture, continues through a jaunty 'Bourée', a stately 'Minuet' and ends with the grand 'Alla Hornpipe'. It's often paired with Handel's other celebratory royal river piece, Music for the Royal Fireworks , written in 1749 for George II.

He was obviously well practised at writing music that would carry when performed outside, using bassoons, horns and trumpets to help the sound carry. Handel's "Water Music" - London 1717 - In Mozart's Footsteps - Uncommon Musical Travel With the focus on London’s Olympics these days, and also of the current presidential campaign, I was reminded of a great piece of music whose first performance was on the Thames almost 300 years ago. George Fredric Handel In 1717, King George’s popularity with the British population had declined. In an attempt to rectify this, his advisors thought that a large-scale spectacle was needed, and they suggested a huge boating event on the Thames River. Of course, music was needed for the “river party”, and the court composer, George Frederic Handel, was asked to compose the festive music. On July 17, the King was on the Royal Barge with an assortment of Dukes and Duchesses, Counts and Countesses, Earls and other noblemen. A barge owned by the City of London held Handel and fifty musicians.

The public must have totally embraced the idea because the number of boats on the river that summer day were “beyond counting” according to one participant. A Long Day of Performing Handel (left) with King George on the Royal Barge on the day in 1717 when the “Water Music” was first performed. Handel wrote the music in three parts, with the entire piece lasting more than an hour. The musicians played the music as the barges moved from Whitehall where the festivities started, to Chelsea where dinner was served. After the King and his party finished dining, the barges reversed direction and returned to Whitehall with the musicians continuing to perform this newly composed music. The music was very popular with the King. A local newspaper, the Daily Courant, reported that George “liked so well, that he caus’d it to be plaid over three times in going and returning”. Some scholars believe that it was played three times each way, making for more than six hours of performing for the musicians sitting on moving barges in the July heat. I doubt the musician’s union would allow for that these days.

Share this: Classical Notes - Classical Classics - Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, By Peter Gutmann Summer evokes outdoor concerts, but the music often gets trumped by the occasion – we recall the atmosphere, logistics and companions more than the actual entertainment. Two of the most renown were presented in London a dozen generations ago by George Frideric Handel, whose music has survived to delight modern audiences. The first took place on April 17, 1717. The Daily Courant reported: At about 8, the King took Water at Whitehall in an open Barge ... and went up the [Thames] River towards Chelsea. Many other Barges with Persons of Quality attended, and so great a Number of Boats, that the whole River in a manner was cover'd; a City Company's Barge was employ'd for the Musick, wherein were 50 instruments of all sorts, who play'd all the Way from Lambeth the finest Symphonies, compos'd express for this Occasion, by Mr. Hendel; which his Majesty liked so well, that he caus'd it to be plaid over three times in going and returning.

At Eleven his Majesty went a-shore at Chelsea where a Supper was prepar'd, and then there was another very fine Consort of Musick, which lasted till 2; after which, his Majesty came again into his Barge, and return'd the same Way, the Musick continuing to play till he landed. The Prussian ambassador, Friedrich Bonet, corroborated the newspaper account and provided further details of the "Musick" – it was sponsored by a Baron Kilmanseck, the instruments consisted of trumpets, horns, oboes, bassoons, flutes, violins and basses, and each of the three performances lasted an hour – twice going and again returning. Unfortunately, though, we have no reliable documentation of just what was played. Although many of the pieces became instant hits throughout London, none was published at the time. The chronology has been traced by Roger Fiske in his preface to the Eulenburg score. Two of the minuets appeared in 1720, followed by the overture in 1725.

John Walsh published The Celebrated Water Musick in 1733, but with only eleven of the nineteen movements that he included in a 1743 harpsichord arrangement as Handel's Celebrated Water Musick Compleat. Up to a dozen other selections, including an entire five-movement 1733 Famous Water Peice, once were claimed to be part of the work but later rejected as spurious. Extensive research by Samuel Arnold led to a 1788 edition of nineteen pieces that is generally accepted as the authoritative Water Music. Yet, questions of structure remain. While some arrangers try to separate the dances with more reflective interludes, most nowadays tend to group the pieces into three suites of distinctive character. The first, in F major/d minor, features French horns (possibly their first use in England); the second, in D, adds trumpets; and the third, in G, is more lightly scored with flutes.

Scholars now tend to speculate that the suite in F, the longest and widest-ranging, was played on the outbound trip (and may have been written for a similar excursion two years earlier); the third, too delicate for outdoors, during the banquet; and the noble second during the concluding downstream trip back home. (But this conflicts with Bonet's claims that the entire set was played each time and that each performance took an hour - even with pauses for the musicians to catch their breath, the first suite is barely half that long; yet the movements may have been repeated or perhaps Handel, a notorious recycler, may have enlarged the work with other pieces.) Then as now, a success demands a sequel. That occasion was the mammoth festivities planned for April 27, 1749 to celebrate the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the War of Austrian Succession. Fireworks were to erupt from a massive "machine," an elaborately decorated wooden Dorian temple, 410 feet long and 114 feet high, constructed in Green Park.

According to an observer, Horace Walpole: For a week before, the town was like a country fair, the streets filled from morning to night, scaffolds building wherever you could or could not see, and coaches arriving from every corner of the kingdom. To defuse the tension, 12,000 tickets were sold for a rehearsal of Handel's music, which ended with a 101 cannon salute and caused a massive traffic jam that blocked London Bridge for three hours. The event itself was a sensation, but quite not as planned. The "Machine" before the concert ... ... and during (with fire brigade) Reportedly, the night was rainy, many fireworks fizzled and ground displays failed to ignite. One Horace Walpole observed: "The wheels and all that was to compose the principal part were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no change of colored fire and shapes; the illumination was mean, and lighted so slowly that scarce anybody had patience to wait the finishing." However, there was a grand finale – the "machine" itself caught fire and burned to the ground! (A contemporary illustration [at right] was captioned: "The GRAND WHIM for Posterity to Laugh At ...

with the Right Wing on Fire and the cutting away the two Middle Arches to prevent the whole Fabrick from being Deftroy'd.") A stampede ensued but, according to Walpole: "Very little mischief was done, and but two persons killed." None of the surviving reports made any mention at all of Handel's music, and so the extent to which it meshed with the fireworks is not known. Fortunately, though, we do have his autograph score. The King at first wanted no music but compromised by decreeing only "martial instruments." Handel, too, bargained – for sufficient volume to be heard over the din he had wanted a hundred players, but settled for the then-colossal ensemble of 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 9 horns, 9 trumpets and 3 kettledrums. Yet, he did have the final say - despite the royal aversion, Handel added strings to his score for a repeat performance the next month to benefit his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital. The huge crowds for both the Water Music and Fireworks performances are significant. Public concerts would arise only in the late 18th century.

Before then, performances of opera, concerti and all the other secular Baroque works we now revere were strictly for royalty and their entourages. The general public had no access aside from trickle-down versions by itinerant musicians, and indeed, many would pass their entire lives without ever hearing a skilled artist perform great music. An opportunity to witness a brand new work by England's most famous composer was unique and not to be missed. Perhaps well aware of this, Handel seized the occasions not only to delight his unaccustomed fans, but, more important, to educate them. Both the Water Music and Royal Fireworks brought his audience a crash course in the art they had missed. Thus, Bernard Jacobson hails the Water Music as a glorious amalgam of styles, combining the Italian taste for contrast between solo and ensemble, English bass-writing and alluring French dance rhythms. H. C. Robbins Landon viewed the result as one of diplomacy, essentially appealing to the English audience while incorporating a cosmopolitan range of influences from a formal overture, minuets and pastoral airs, to a sailors' hornpipe and a rollicking country dance. Handel was ideally situated to this role.

Although he settled in England (and became a British citizen in 1724), he was raised in Germany and trained in Italy, and so combined all but one of the European powerhouses of culture. While his gift for alluring melody and colorful orchestration gave his instrumental music wide appeal, it was used primarily as interludes in the theatre, for which he had a particular affinity. At first, the power and emotion of his Italianate operas created a sensation, and then, after taste had shifted, he launched an even greater career with Biblical oratorios; the tradition of annual performances of his most famous, the Messiah, persists to this day. Yet, by the advent of recordings, Handel had fallen long out of favor, and both the Water Music and Fireworks became known largely in arrangements by Hamilton Harty that catered to late romantic taste – heavily abridged and densely orchestrated, with simplified rhythms, smoothed dynamics and underlined cadences. For a 1958 recording with his Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy provided a Water Music arrangement of his own with a far lighter hand. Yet, even these served a crucial purpose – to introduce Handel to audiences otherwise inclined to dismiss him as an archaic historical footnote.

The advent of stereo stirred interest in the complete Water Music. Edward van Beinum and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (Epic) are gracious and elegant, with exquisitely refined playing, Yehudi Menuhin and the Bath Festival Orchestra (EMI) choose a leaner sonority and a keener sense of period style, and Hermann Scherchen and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra (Westminster) are full of subtle balances and imaginative interpretive touches. Leopold Stokowski used an augmented RCA Symphony Orchestra of 120 to invest the score with his trademark color but the result emerged as surprisingly moribund, the principal excitement coming during the last half-minute in which the Fireworks are ruined by ridiculous sound effects of explosions and screaming crowds. The many fine performances currently available divide into those on modern and period instruments. Among the former are acclaimed readings by Raymond Leppard and the English Chamber Orchestra (Philips), Neville Mariner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (Decca), Gerard Schwartz and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Delos), and Orpheus (DG). The latter achieves a clean, tight ensemble without a conductor, its intimacy emerging wholly from within.

(The oft-admired New York Philharmonic recording with Pierre Boulez (Sony) is precise but sleepy, drained of the spirit of his 1960s Nonesuch LP with the Hague Philharmonic.) All convey the timeless grandeur and brilliance of this music, its humanity nestled in formality. Yet, even the best of these sound somewhat bland compared to those that embrace the distinctive sonorities and balances of Handel's time. The proud parade of historically significant recordings had been launched in a 1954 album by Boyd Neel and The Boyd Neel Orchestra (London LP). A physician enamoured of music, Neel had formed his own 18-piece string orchestra in London in 1933. Two decades later, their record appears to have been the first of the complete Water Music on a major label. Although using modern instruments (plus a harpsichord), the lean textures of their ensemble, infused with crisp, vivid playing and bounding with high spirits, paved the way to the historically-informed performances to which we have now become accustomed. The Neel recording remains as delightful today as it was hugely influential in its time.

But the Neel recording and all the others noted here were major label releases, marketed and available for purchase world-wide. The true pioneer among Water Musics appears to have been an obscure 1950 LP issued by Washington, DC radio station WCFM on its own private label, featuring the National Gallery Orchestra conducted by Richard Bales, music director of the National Gallery of Art, who founded the ensemble in 1943 and reportedly led it in 1,700 free Sunday afternoon concerts of American music over 42 years. (They recorded three deluxe albums for Columbia – The American Revolution, The Confederacy and The Union, each featuring narration, essays and music of the eras.) The cover was a simple but effective announcement of the contents, which the notes carefully distinguished from the then-prevalent Harty suite. The ensemble plays with wonderful cohesion and warmth, solos are fully integrated into the overall texture, and tempos are dignified yet enthused. In an effort to suggest authentic balances, winds are pared and the harpsichord eliminated altogether. The quality of both performance and recording belies its inscription in a single session.

Thurston Dart and the Philomusica of London (Oiseau-Lyre) introduced a chamber sonority. Curiously, though, while Dart authored a seminal 1954 study of early performance practices (The Interpretation of Music), his reading was full of modern vibrato and stopped short of applying his scholarly research to restore elements of 18th century style that Handel never bothered to write out, since he had assumed his players understood them. Foremost among these is an exaggeration of the difference between dotted and short notes. Indeed, a clear sign of observing baroque conventions comes at the very outset of both works. Thus, while the opening rhythm of the Fireworks overture is written as a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note, the practice in Handel's time was to assume double-dotting, as if the first note were 1� beats followed by a sixteenth note. (The authoritative Eulenburg score shows both the original notation and a set of extra flags denoting the preferred rhythm.) A 1978 recording by Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Das Alte Werk) launched the original instrument revival of Handel.

Playing mostly instruments from Handel's time (plus a few authentic copies), the 27-member Concentus Musicus Wien zipped through the whole work in 43 minutes, with breakneck tempos, lean textures and startling sonorities, including horn trills that shock with their virtuostic attacks (no easy feat using "natural" horns without any valves, so that all tonal effects are done through the lips). Yet, despite its visceral thrill, the impact may lack suitable style – this music was meant to enchant conservative nobility during a relaxing excursion, not to blow their boat out of the water. Actually, an obscure yet faithful recording of the Fireworks had appeared a decade earlier on a Vox LP from the Telemann Society Band led by Richard Schulze and featuring valveless hunting horns and trumpets, oboes and bassoons with thick French reeds and a leather cavalry serpent, a six-foot winding leather contraption to provide the bass.

As explained in an accompanying audio demonstration comparing period instruments with their modern counterparts, the overtones produced by natural tuning (in the days before the tyranny of keyboard-mandated "equal temperament," when a c-sharp and a d-flat were quite different, neither half-way between C and D) tend to clash and sound "radical" to modern ears. It does indeed – the sour intonation (and the rhythmic insecurity from the sheer effort needed to coax sound out of these instruments) evoke more the aura of a grade-school band rehearsal than an enjoyable concert. Modern recordings boasting period instruments and embellishments include Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (Oiseau-Lyre), the Linde Consort (Virgin), Martin Pearlman and the Boston Baroque (Telarc), Jeanne Lamon and Tafelmusik (Sony) and Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert (Archiv). All feature lucid tempos, bright sonority, careful balances and superb playing.

Standouts are Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra (Harmonia Mundi) and Jordi Saval and Le Concert des Nations (Astr�e) – both are especially peppy and alert, brimming with spirit, constantly shifting timbres, intensified pacing and irresistibly vivid dances. Yet, authenticity for these works is an elusive concept, considering their conception and purpose. In the days before electronic amplification, the challenges of hearing an outdoor performance were severe enough, but were considerably worsened in the middle of a river or amid vast crowds, without the natural acoustical reinforcement of a band-shell or amphitheatre. Three recordings tackle the problem creatively with enhanced musical forces. A pioneering 1959 Fireworks by Charles Mackerras (now on a Testament CD) massed 64 London wind and brass players to replicate the needed volume to be heard on that occasion; although tempos are stodgy, it still seems a far more reliable guide to the original sound than all the period versions noted above that feature a prominent harpsichord continuo (which, while rarely notated but assumed to be intended in nearly all Handel's other music, could not possibly have been heard in an open outdoor setting).

The feat was repeated in 1972 by Johannes Somary and an augmented English Chamber Orchestra; while interpretively bland, the SQ quadraphonic system invoked not only the original scoring but its spatial ambience (excitingly conveyed on a Vanguard 4-channel SACD). Among modern recordings, only one follows boldly in Mackerras's footsteps (although it adds the strings that most likely were absent the first night) – Le Concert Spirituel, led by Herv� Niquet (2002, Glossa), an ecstatic romp with pounding tympani, added fanfares and a half-minute drum solo that fairly bursts with the unfettered spirit of an outdoor celebration. It's rowdy to be sure, but a palpable reflection of the ecstatic excitement of a crowd who had never before heard such a splendid outpouring of glorious sound. Among the many Handel biographies, H. C.

Robbins Landon's Handel and His World (Little Brown, 1984) relies mostly on contemporaneous documents, is heavily illustrated, contains an annotated bibliography, and devotes full chapters to the Water Music and Royal Fireworks (which most others tend to slight in favor of the more influential operas, oratorios and concertos). Among the sources from which Landon quotes extensively is the very first Handel biography, John Mainwaring's 1760 Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel, which preserves recollections of Handel's family and associates but also launched some erroneous and persistent claims. Chief among these is the oft-repeated account of the origin of the Water Music. Handel had been appointed Kappelmeister to the German Hanover court, but his patron had become upset that the court composer was constantly absent on extended English stays.

According to Mainwaring, when the Hanover Elector succeeded to the English throne in 1714, he snubbed Handel, who made amends by surprising the king on a 1715 rafting party with a concert at which he presented his Water Music (or at least the first portion that now comprises the suite in F, later adapted for the 1717 festivities). That's now largely discredited, as whatever rift there had been with his former employer and current sovereign Handel had healed long before. Even so, it's a charming and harmless tale. Copyright 2005 by Peter Gutmann Handel Water Music complete, Music for the Royal Fireworks MUSIC for the ROYAL FIREWORKS The LEEDS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA THE WATER MUSIC - 1717 (complete) 1. Suite #1 in F Major Allegro - gigue / Hornpipe / Menuet / Lentement / Presto 3.

Suite #3 in G Major Lento / Aria - minore / Menuet / Andante / Country dance MUSIC FOR THE ROYAL FIREWORKS - 1749 Overture (Adagio/Allegro-Lentement-Adagio/Allegro) � Bourr�e � La Paix (Largo alla Siziliana) � La R�jouissance � Minuet I � Minuet II Total Time: 70:02 In the summer of 1717 the King George requested a concert on the River Thames, and Handel was commissioned to write 'Water Music', for wind and strings. With members of the court and musicians accommodated in barges, the evening's entertainment went on until the early hours of the morning, and was, according to several contemporary reports, a great success. The Music for the Royal Fireworks was composed some 30 years later, in 1749, to accompany the festivities at Green Park in celebration of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The public rehearsal in Vauxhall Gardens drew an audience of some 12,000 people and created a 3-hour traffic jam on London Bridge!

Handel as usual is in top musical form: there was no state or royal occasion to which Handel could not rise with appropriate musical pomp and splendor! The Water Music is complete, and is here performed by the Bath Festival Orchestra under Yehudi Menuhin. Orchestra, conductor and featured players (oboe, horns, trumpets) are on top form; the music is lively or dramatic as called for, the phrasing and detailing have been well considered and prepared. A most fortunate combination indeed. Our Music for the Royal Fireworks is performed by the Leeds Chamber Orchestra under Martin Stevens. The north of England has a long tradition of fine Handel performances and this is no exception. 100+ CDs - just Bach & Baroque to buy - or download. Direct from George Frideric Handel George Frideric Handel The Water Music in Three Suites Complete Handel's Water Music is a collection of short orchestral pieces composed to serenade King George I of England during a boating party on the Thames river in 1717. The music is grouped into three suites, each featuring different instrumental colors and having its own distinct character.

The individual movements that comprise these suites include overtures, fanfares, instrumental arias, and dances. Tracks: 1. The Water Music Suite I Overture 2. The Water Music Suite I Adagio e staccato 3. The Water Music Suite I Allegro, Andante, Allegro 4. The Water Music Suite I Allegro 5. The Water Music Suite I Air 6. The Water Music Suite I Minuet 7. The Water Music Suite I Bourree 8. The Water Music Suite I Hornpipe 9. The Water Music Suite I Allegro 10. The Water Music Suite II Allegro 11. The Water Music Suite II Alla Hornpipe 12. The Water Music Suite II Minuet 13. The Water Music Suite II Lentement 14. The Water Music Suite II Bourree 15. The Water Music Suite III Sarabande 16. The Water Music Suite III Rigaudon 17. The Water Music Suite III Minuet 18. The Water Music Suite III Gigue 19. Handel’s Early Career 20.

Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movements I & II 21. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movement III 22. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movements IV – VI 23. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movements VII – IX 24. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite II Movements I – V 25. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite III Movements I – IV 26. Handel in England George Frideric Handel was born in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, in the central German city of Halle. His family was not musical, and Handel’s father initially tried to discourage his son’s musical interests, hoping that he would pursue a more dependable career in law. Handel, however, displayed not only an exceptional talent but a strong will, developing his skill as a keyboard player despite paternal objections.

When Handel was just 10 years old, during a visit to a relative employed at the court of Johann Adolph, Duke of Weissenfels, his playing on the organ made such an impression that the Duke financed the boy’s music studies. Handel seems never to have considered seriously his father’s wish that he study law. In any event, music soon claimed him. At age 17 he obtained a position as organist in one of Halle’s principal churches. A year later, in 1803, he departed his native town and for the next three years worked in Hamburg, the German city most devoted to opera. Like many composers of his day, Handel was eager to make his mark in the theater, and he was fortunate to obtain employment as a violinist and harpsichordist in the opera orchestra. The harpsichord was the most important instrument in opera, which attests to Handel’s skill as a player. His experience of many contemporary operas encouraged him to write several of his own. Handel’s stay in Hamburg whetted his appetite for opera and he soon realized that he would do well to seek knowledge of that genre at its source.

Accordingly, he set out for Italy in the autumn of 1706. During the next four years he stayed in Florence, Rome, Venice and other cities, hearing the music of his foremost Italian colleagues an becoming acquainted with many of them in person. These years were vitally important to Handel’s development as a musician. In Italy he learned the art of writing appealing and expressive melodies, acquired the dramatic sensibility that would serve him so well as a composer of operas and oratorios, and attained an understanding of orchestral composition. As his biographer Winton Dean put it, Handel “arrive in Italy a gifted but crude composer with an uncertain command of form, and left it a polished and fully-equipped artist.” In 1710, at age 25, Handel returned to Germany, obtaining a position as court composer to Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover. It seems, however, that the young musician already had his sights set on London, where Italian opera was enjoying a sudden surge of popularity, and he managed to obtain an immediate leave of absence in order to visit England. Handle arrived in London in September 1710, and scored a conspicuous success with his opera Rinaldo.

Although he could not have know it at the time, this would be merely the first of many triumphs he would achieve in the English capital. Handel soon returned to Hanover in 1711, but he had found the cosmopolitan atmosphere and busy music life of London so much to his liking that he obtained leave from his duties in Hanover to visit England a second time in 1712. Although he agreed to return to Hanover before long, Handel now settled into a comfortable routine in his new home. By day he composed operas for the London theaters; during the evenings he consorted with the cream of English society, including the royal family. The country’s ruler, Queen Anne, showed her approval by granting Handel an annual stipend and commissioning him to compose works for her birthday celebration, the signing of an important peace accord (the Treaty of Utrecht) and other national occasions. In August 1714 Queen Anne died leaving no heir and by an ironic twist of fate the English crown now passed to the House of Hanover. Handel had by this time effectively abandoned his post in Hanover and taken up permanent residence in England.

We do not know whether the truant composer ignored calls to return to Germany, or, indeed, what the state of his relationship with Georg Ludwig was at this time. If it was strained, he may well have felt some discomfort when, in September, Elector Georg Ludwig arrived in London to be crowned King George the First. According to a widely circulated but undocumented story, Handel was initially afraid to appear at court. Eventually, however, he managed to repair his relationship with England’s new king, for he enjoyed royal favor for many years. In fact, Handel became for all practical purposes England’s national composer. He composed anthems for the coronation of King George II, for the wedding of Prince Frederick, and for the funeral of Queen Catherine. His oratorio Judas Macabeus commemorated the crown’s victory over the rebellion led by Prince Charles in 1746. When King George ordered a huge pyro-technical display in a London park to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749, Handel wrote his Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Through these and other efforts, Handel became something of an institution in his adopted homeland, his music an expression of patriotic pride at the height of the British empire. Despite these occasional commissions to write public ceremonial music or works for royal entertainment, the theater remained the center of Handel’s professional life. Here his natural business sense served him well, for he was as much an entrepreneur as an artist in the opera house. He assumed responsibility for the production of his works and shared in the box office profits. But by the late 1720s the English started to tire of the contrived plots and outlandish theatricality that characterized opera during the Baroque era. As attendance at his presentations dwindled, so did Handel’s finances, and in 1737 the company that had been producing his operas in London collapsed in bankruptcy. By this time, however, Handel had begun to compose a new type of work, the oratorio. This choral work was less costly to present than opera yet had the potential to appeal to a broader audience drawn form the rising English middle class. Handel’s oratorios related classical legends and Biblical stories, the latter often told through extracts from the scriptures.

The most famous of these works is, of course, Messiah, which Handel wrote in 1741. Although universally revered today, Messiah initially incurred the wrath of religious conservatives who objected to its portrayal of Christ in the secular setting of the concert hall. But the composer finally outmaneuvered his zealous critics. Beginning in 1750, he led annual performances of the oratorio for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital, a respected London charity. This gesture won Handel general admiration and secured for Messiah the beginning of the great esteem and affection it enjoys to this day. Despite his celebrity, Handel was in many ways a very private person, As a result, out knowledge of his personality and character is somewhat obscure. Certainly he was pragmatic and worldly, as the enterprising nature of his opera and oratorio presentations attests. But he also reportedly fell into a “divine rapture”, as one of his contemporaries describe, when composing Messiah. He could be stubborn and angry when provoked, but he could also be remarkably generous. Acquaintances often remarked on his dry and rather sharp with, and on his voracious appetite and love of good food and drink.

Handel never married, and his relationship with the fair sex remains a mystery. While in Italy he reportedly fell in love with a certain soprano. An English contemporary observed that “his Amours were rather of short duration.” Music, it seems, served as his one true companion. Though with failing eyesight in his later years, Handel continued to present oratorios to London up until the last year of his life. He died a celebrated figure in 1759. In accordance with his well, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Some 3,000 people attended his funeral. Unlike his great contemporary, J.S. Bach, Handel’s reputation did not fade after his death but instead grew ever brighter. His oratorios and orchestral music continued to be performed in England and elsewhere for the remainder of the 18th century. Both Mozart and Beethoven knew Handel’s works and admired them. During the 19th century, he alone among musicians of his era continued to reach a large audience. Today Handel’s music is more widely performed than ever, and the composer stands beside Bach as music’s defining genius during the Baroque era.

The Water Music Handel composed the collection of orchestral pieces known as the Water Music for a truly royal entertainment: an excursion on the Thames river hosted by England’s King George I. Handels earliest biographers proposed that the composer was in disfavor with the monarch until the Water Music restored him to His Majesty’s graces. This seems at least plausible but unlikely. When he took up permanent residence in England in 1712, Handel was still engaged as music director at the court of Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover. He had obtained leave to visit London with the understanding that he would return to Hanover within a reasonable time. However, Handel’s rising fortunes in England gave him little reason to leave, and his stay in London became a matter not of weeks or months but of years. When the English crown passed to the House of Hanover in 1714, Handel’s nominal employer arrived in London to be crowned King George I. The story that Handel was subsequently afraid to appear at court has acquired the force of legend. This story claims that a reconciliation finally occurred due to the King’s delight with the music Handel produced for a river party in August, 1715.

However, there is little evidence to support it. No newspaper reports or other documentation or royal barge excursion in 1715 now exists. Besides, George I attended performances of Handel’s works shortly after he arrive in England, and he readily renewed the stipend Queen Anne had granted the composer before he death. Certainly he had more important concerns than holding a grudge against a mere musician. It seems more likely, then, that the Water Music was first heard on the evening of July 17, 1717. On this date the Kind did hose a river trip, and this event has been amply documented. One report comes from a Prussian diplomat stationed in London, who offered these details: “About eight in the evening the King repaired to his barge, into which were admitted the Duchess of Bolton, Countess Godolphin, Madame de Kilmanseck, Mrs. Ware and the Earl of Orkney, [and] the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber in Waiting.

Next to the King’s barge was that of the musicians, about fifty in number, who played on all kinds of instruments, to wit trumpets, horns, oboes, bassoons, flutes, recorders, violins and basses….The music had been composed specially by the famous Mr. Handel, a native of Halle and His Majesty’s principal court composer. His Majesty approved of it to be repeated three times in all, although each performance lasted an hour - namely twice before supper and once after supper. The [weather in the]evening was all that could be desired for the festivity, the number of barges and above all of boats filled with people desirous of hearing was beyond counting…….The concert cost Baron Kilmanseck L150 for the musicians alone.” The music Handel assembled to serenade the King and his party as they floated on the Thames consisted of a loose selection of overtures, fanfares, dances and instrumental airs. Precisely how the composer arranged these movements, and in what order, is uncertain, for the Water Music was published in different short excerpts over the course of the next 50 years.

But the music itself – its instrumentation and the keys in which the various movements appear – suggests a grouping of three suites, and this has become the accepted format for performing the work.. The Water Music opens with a full-blown overture that adheres to Handel’s typical pattern of a ceremonious introduction in slow tempo leading to a contrapuntal Allegro. There follows a particularly fine example of Handel’s instrumental aria, its melodic lines and harmonies combining dignity and tenderness in equal measure. The second suite also begins with a prelude. This movement, however, consists entirely of elaborate fanfares featuring the brass instruments. Nearly all the other movements are dances. They feature the characteristic rhythms of the minuet, the bourree, the hornpipe and others well known to the composer’s listeners. Modern recordings of the Water Music may offer just a limited selection of movements collected as a single suite; the accompanying recording includes all three suites in full. The Baroque Era in Music The period from approximately 1600 to 1750 has become known to historians of music as the Baroque era.

Initially, the term “Baroque” just described a particular style of music, one marked by ornate melodic turns, brilliant instrumental sound and extravagant displays of virtuosity. While some of these traits do serve to distinguish the music of this era from the earlier Renaissance and subsequent Classical periods, music from the Baroque era as a whole is quite varied in character and texture. Much of it presents a beguiling sweetness, with relatively simple textures and song-like melodies. The Baroque era saw the rise of several developments that have profoundly shaped the course of Western music over the last three centuries and more. Perhaps the most conspicuous of these was the development of two important types of composition: opera and orchestral music. Opera originated in Italy at the start of the seventeenth century and gradually became a favorite entertainment in all the major European capitals. Orchestral music developed somewhat later, following the perfection of the violin, viola and cello by Italian craftsman, and the redesign of the flute, oboe and bassoon in France. Originally, composers used the orchestra in connection with opera or ballet, as well as for special church music.

But by about 1700 orchestral music had achieved an independent status, and such music began to be head outside of any theatrical or ecclesiastical context. The first important forms of orchestral composition were the concerto, developed chiefly in Italy, and the danced suite, which was cultivated especially in France and Germany. The development of concert music for orchestra coincided with the culmination of the Baroque era during the first half of the eighteenth century. This provided a golden age for music, one whose luster was brightened by many fine composers. Among the greatest of them were Vivaldi, Bach, Scarlatti, Telemann and, by no means least, Handel. The Missing Details of Baroque Compositions Baroque composers left out many of the details that composers of later eras routinely included in their scores. For example, an important feature of Baroque music is the use of embellishment or ornamentation, but these were rarely written out in the score. Composers during the Baroque era permitted and even expected performers to add their own impromptu decorative melodic details to a composition. The conventions for doing this were widely known by musicians in the early eighteenth century and so were not written out by the composer.

It was particularly understood that whenever a musical phrase or passage was repeated, the second statement should be embellished in some fashion. In a broader sense, Baroque composers gave only very general directions for performing their music. For example, they would not which instruments were to play a passage of music, but not necessarily when individual instruments were to be played. They gave only a general sense of tempo and little about dynamics – that is, where the music was loud or soft, or about basic phrasing – where the music builds up and fades away. And it was often left to the performers and accepted convention whether a note was played long or short. These specific details in modern performances Baroque music are prepared by the conductor, an editor, or the performer. So two performances of the same piece by a Baroque composer can often be very different. For this recording, Maestro Schwarz prepared the edition. Handel’s Orchestra and the Water Music The orchestra for which Handel wrote the Water Music varied substantially from the modern symphony orchestra. Instruments we take for granted in the music of Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Ravel – clarinets, trombones and others – were not yet widely in use in the early 18th century.

Handel had essentially three types of instruments at his disposal: strings; brass (specifically, horns and trumpets); and woodwinds (namely, flutes, oboes and bassoons). He evidently conceived these instrumental groups as having distinct characters, and he often used them as separate choirs rather than seeking to blend them. The string section forms the backbone of Handel’s orchestra – not surprising, since it was the core ensemble for all orchestras during the Baroque period. In fact, many Baroque orchestras were only made up of strings. In addition to the familiar violins, violas, cellos and basses, the string section included harpsichord. That keyboard instrument provided accompaniment to all instrumental music during the Baroque era. So ubiquitous was its use that composers did not need to specify it; musicians simply understood that it should be included in performance and often devised parts for it extemporaneously from the orchestral note. Among the woodwinds, the reed instruments (oboes and bassoons) also appear in all three suites. Frequently Handel treats these instruments as a choir.

In addition, he occasionally casts a single oboe in a solo role; the second movement of the first suite, for example, presents an aria for the oboe with discreet accompaniment from the strings. Apart from the strings and reed instruments, each of the three Water Music suites features different instrumental colors. The first suite makes conspicuous use of the French horns and is sometimes called the “horn suite” for its prominent use of that instrument. In fact Handel’s Water Music was one of the very first compositions to use French horns, and much of their music here recalls their earlier association with hunting calls. Handel’s second Water Music suite uses trumpets to stirring effect. The third suite abandons the brass instruments in favor of flutes, whose timbre imparts a sweet and intimate tone to this portion of the work. By treating the several families of instruments as distinct choirs, Handel was able to produce antiphonal effects – calls and responses between different groups of players. Moreover, the juxtaposition of contrasting tone colors was ideally suited for outdoor performance.

In scoring the Water Music, Handel perfectly calculated the setting in which it was to be performed, and one delights in imagining how these pieces must have sounded to their first audience, floating on the Thames on that warm summer evening in 1717. San Francisco Symphony - HANDEL: Water Music Suite No. 3 in G major │ Music for the Royal Fireworks San Francisco Symphony Handel: Water Music Suite No. 3 in G Major │ Music for the Royal Fireworks Water Music Suite No. 3 in G major Music for the Royal Fireworks George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Germany, on February 23, 1685. He was baptized under the name Georg Friederich Händel, but long before his death, in London on April 14, 1759, he had adopted the English version of his name. He composed at least part of his Water Music for a performance the night of July 17-18, 1717, although portions may date from the years immediately preceding.

The first US performance of music from the work as a whole was given by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with William Gericke conducting, in December 1885. Selections from the Water Music were first performed by the San Francisco Symphony in March 1929, with Alfred Hertz conducting; the most recent performances of the Suite No. 3 were given in April 2008 under the direction of Harry Christophers. The suite played here uses an orchestra of flute (doubling piccolo), two oboes, bassoon, harpsichord, and strings (two violins, viola, and a bass part that may be played by a combination of cellos and double basses). Duration: about ten minutes. The Music for the Royal Fireworks had its official premiere on April 27, 1749, in Green Park, London, through no fewer than 12,000 persons had attended the public rehearsal in the Spring Garden at Vauxhall six days earlier.

Theodore Thomas conducted the first US performance at the Central Park Gardens, New York, on October 21, 1868; Alfred Hertz led the first performances by the San Francisco Symphony in March 1928; most recently, in March 2001, the music was heard here under the direction of Harry Bicket. The scoring is for three oboes, two bassoons and contrabassoon, three horns, three trumpets, timpani, harpsichord, and strings. Duration: about twenty minutes. Not least among Handel’s gifts was his fluency in ingesting the traits of various national styles popular in the music of his time. In his Water Music we hear a Handel who seems ever so English, spinning out Purcellian hornpipes and country-dances as if he had heard them since he was in the cradle. Possibly this strikes us more forcefully than it did the listeners of Handel’s time, thanks to the fact that certain details of Handelian style were so forcefully embraced in Great Britain that they continued to inform that nation’s compositions for generations, effectively defining “the British sound” as being, at heart, Handelian.

The Water Music is the most famous of Handel’s instrumental works, but the documentation of its origin leaves quite a few unanswered questions. There is no doubt that this music—or at least a good deal of it—was performed for the first time to accompany King George I and his entourage during a Royal cruise up and down the Thames on the night of July 17-18, 1717. Friedrich Bonet, the Prussian consul in London, reported: “About eight in the evening the King repaired to his barge, into which were admitted the Duchess of Bolton, Countess Godolphin, Mad. de Kilmanseck, Mrs. Were and the Earl of Orkney, the Gentleman of the Bedchamber in Waiting. Next to the King’s barge was that of the musicians, about 50 in number, who played on all kinds of instruments . . . . The music had been composed specially by the famous Handel . . . . His Majesty approved of it so greatly that he caused it to be repeated three times in all, although each performance lasted an hour—namely twice before and once after supper.

The evening was all that could be desired for the festivity, the number of barges and above all of boats filled with people desirous of hearing was beyond counting. Unfortunately, Handel’s original score does not survive apart from two movements that are clearly his later elaborations of original Water Music items. The source material therefore goes back only to manuscripts (not in Handel’s hand) and printed editions that appeared between 1722 and 1743. A transcription of the Water Music for solo harpsichord, written out in the 1720s, lays out the music in three suites, gathering the pieces in F, G, and D into separate suites. Because that manuscript happens to be in the hand of Handel’s amanuensis and copyist John Christopher Smith, this ordering commands considerable authority, and the ordering of that manuscript was preserved when the Water Music was first published in full orchestral score, in 1788.

In that arrangement, the three suites are further marked by distinct instrumentation: woodwinds, two horns, and strings in the F major Suite; trumpets, horns, woodwinds, and strings in the D major Suite; and woodwinds and strings in the G major Suite. There are no absolute answers to inform a modern performance of Handel’s Water Music, and the fact that Handel himself didn’t bother to codify the score during his lifetime gives today’s interpreters considerably leeway in which to operate. There are many satisfying “solutions” to the ordering of the movements and the formulation of suites, although we are not likely ever to know whether they reproduce what George I heard from his barge. In October 1748 England and France signed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ending the War of the Austrian Succession. The war actually involved Austria and Prussia, but Britain was an ally of Austria while France, in an uncharacteristic moment, was in league with the Prussians (as was Spain). In any case, the treaty ensured that the war was about to conclude.

To celebrate, an immense structure in Palladian style was built in London’s Green Park, meant as a launching pad for a spectacular fireworks display to celebrate the peace. Handel was the man to supply the music. Mirroring the graciousness towards a former enemy expressed in the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Handel here writes music “in French.” The French overture style, as codified by Lully and adapted in the eighteenth century by Rameau, had provided a model for many composers outside France. Structurally, it involved a slow, often pompous opening section, followed without break by rapid music marked by considerable imitative counterpoint. Handel generally follows that plan here, inserting a brief modulating passage between the two parts of the overture. But he adapts the classic models in a way that is entirely his own. Notice, for example, how far the opening music transcends mere pomposity, achieving a noble, hymn-like feeling. And who but Handel would have gone the extra distance to harmonize that opening material in three different ways as it recurs in the movement?

The composer is similarly idiosyncratic in the Allegro section, which is based on fanfare figures and their echoes, and which keeps the ear alert through constant variation of instrumental groupings. A French dance follows, a merry Bourrée for two upper parts plus bass. The next two movements reflect the import of the occasion: a gentle siciliano titled La Paix (Peace), and a martial movement called La Réjouissance (Rejoicing). The latter is to be played three times through: the first time featuring trumpets, woodwinds, and strings; the second by horns and woodwinds; and the third with all the instruments together. The cumulative effect is wonderful; a listener might imagine the music being played by a military band marching on a drill field, facing first one direction, then another, then turning to address the audience head-on. To end, Handel lines up two minuets in succession—the first full-toned and ebullient, the second restrained--and then repeats the first to round out the finale. —James M.

Keller More About the Music Recordings: For the Water Music Suite—Martin Pearlman conducting Boston Baroque (Telarc) | Robert King conducting the King’s Consort (Helios) | Charles Mackerras conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Telarc) | The conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon) | Jordi Savall leading Le Concert des Nations (Alia Vox, also includes the Royal Fireworks Music) For the Royal Fireworks Music—Roger Norrington conducting the London Classical Players (Virgin Classics) | Jordi Savall leading Le Concert des Nations (Alia Vox, also includes the three Water Music suites) Reading: Handel: The Man and his Music, by Jonathan Keates (Gollancz) | Handel, by Christopher Hogwood (Thames and Hudson) | Handel Concertos, Stanley Sadie’s BBC Concert Guide, which covers Handel’s instrumental music (University of Washington Press) | Handel: The Orchestral Music, by Alfred Mann (Schirmer Books) San Francisco Symphony George Frideric Handel - Composer - Biography.com George Frideric Handel George Frideric Handel composed operas, oratorios and instrumentals.

His 1741 work, 'Messiah,' is among the most famous oratorios in history. IN THESE GROUPS Composer Synopsis Baroque composer George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Germany, in 1685. In 1705 he made his debut as an opera composer with Almira. He produced several operas with the Royal Academy of Music in England before forming the New Royal Academy of Music in 1727. When Italian operas fell out of fashion, he started composing oratorios, including his most famous, Messiah. Handel died in London, England, in 1759. Early Life Georg Frideric Handel was born on February 23, 1685, to Georg and Dorothea Handel of Halle, Saxony, Germany. From an early age, Handel longed to study music, but his father objected, doubting that music would be a realistic source of income. In fact, his father would not even permit him to own a musical instrument. His mother, however, was supportive, and she encouraged him to develop his musical talent. With her cooperation, Handel took to practicing on the sly.

When Handel was still a young boy, he had the opportunity to play the organ for the duke’s court in Weissenfels. It was there that Handel met composer and organist Frideric Wilhelm Zachow. Zachow was impressed with Handel’s potential and invited Handel to become his pupil. Under Zachow's tutelage, Handel mastered composing for the organ, the oboe and the violin alike by the time he was 10 years old. From the age of 11 to the time he was 16 or 17, Handel composed church cantatas and chamber music that, being written for a small audience, failed to garner much attention and have since been lost to time. Despite his dedication to his music, at his father’s insistence, Handel initially agreed to study law at the University of Halle. Not surprisingly, he did not remain enrolled for long. His passion for music would not be suppressed. In 1703, when Handel was 18 years old, he decided to commit himself completely to music, accepting a violinist’s position at the Hamburg Opera’s Goose Market Theater.

During this time, he supplemented his income by teaching private music lessons in his free time, passing on what he had learned from Zachow. Opera Though working as a violinist, it was Handel's skill on the organ and harpsichord that began to earn him attention and landed him more opportunities to perform in operas. Handel also began to compose operas, making his debut in early 1705 with Almira. The opera was instantly successful and achieved a 20-performance run. After composing several more popular operas, in 1706 Handel decided to try his luck in Italy. While in there, Handel composed the operas Rodrigo and Agrippina, which were produced in 1707 and 1709 respectively. He also managed to write more than a few dramatic chamber works during this period. Touring the major Italian cities over three opera seasons, Handel introduced himself to most of Italy’s major musicians. Unexpectedly, while in Venice, he met multiple people who expressed an interest in London’s music scene. Enticed to experiment with a freelance music career there, in 1710 Handel left Venice and set out for London.

In London, Handel met with the manager of the King’s Theatre, who commissioned Handel to write an opera. Within just two weeks, Handel composed Rinaldo. Released during the 1710–11 London opera season, Rinaldo was Handel’s breakthrough. His most critically acclaimed work up to that date, it gained him the widespread recognition that he would maintain throughout the rest of his musical career. After the debut of Rinaldo, Handel spent the next few years writing and performing for English royalty, including Queen Anne and King George I . Then, in 1719, Handel was invited to become the Master of the Orchestra at the Royal Academy of Music, the first Italian opera company in London. Handel eagerly accepted. He produced several operas with the Royal Academy of Music that, while well liked, were not especially lucrative for the struggling academy. In 1726 Handel decided to make London his home permanently, and became a British citizen.

(He also Anglicized his name at this time, to George Frideric.) In 1727, when Handel’s latest opera, Alessandro, was being performed, Italian opera in London took a hard hit as the result of a hostile rivalry between two female lead singers. Frustrated, Handel broke away from the Royal Academy and formed his own new company, calling it the New Royal Academy of Music. Under the New Royal Academy of Music, Handel produced two operas a year for the next decade, but Italian opera fell increasingly out of style in London. Handel composed two more Italian operas before finally deciding to abandon the failing genre. Oratorios In place of operas, oratorios became Handel’s new format of choice. Oratorios, large-scale concert pieces, immediately caught on with audiences and proved quite lucrative. The fact that oratorios didn’t require elaborate costumes and sets, as operas did, also meant that they cost far less to produce. Handel revised a number of Italian operas to fit this new format, translating them into English for the London audience. His oratorios became the latest craze in London and were soon made a regular feature of the opera season.

In 1735, during Lent alone, Handel produced more than 14 concerts made up primarily of oratorios. In 1741 Dublin’s Lord Lieutenant commissioned Handel to write a new oratorio based on a biblical libretto assembled by art patron Charles Jennens. As a result, Handel’s most famous oratorio, Messiah, made its debut at the New Music Hall in Dublin in April 1742. Back in London, Handel organized a subscription season for 1743 that consisted exclusively of oratorios. The series opened with Handel’s composition Samson, to great audience acclaim. Samson was eventually followed by a run of Handel’s beloved Messiah. Handel continued to compose a long string of oratorios throughout the remainder of his life and career.

These included Semele (1744), Joseph and His Brethren (1744), Hercules (1745), Belshazzar (1745), Occasional Oratorio (1746), Judas Maccabeus (1747), Joshua (1748), Alexander Balus (1748), Susanna (1749), Solomon (1749), Theodora (1750), The Choice of Hercules (1751), Jeptha (1752) and The Triumph of Time and Truth (1757). In addition to his oratorios, Handel’s concerti grossi, anthems and orchestral pieces also garnered him fame and success. Among the most noted were Water Music (1717), Coronation Anthems (1727), Trio Sonatas op. 2 (1722–33), Trio Sonatas op. 5 (1739), Concerto Grosso op. 6 (1739) and Music for Royal Fireworks, completed a decade before his death.

Health Issues Over the course of his musical career, Handel, exhausted by stress, endured a number of potentially debilitating problems with his physical health. He is also believed to have suffered from anxiety and depression. Yet somehow, Handel, who was known to laugh in the face of adversity, remained virtually undeterred in his determination to keep making music. In the spring of 1737, Handel suffered a stroke that impaired the movement of his right hand. His fans worried that he would never compose again. But after only six weeks of recuperation in Aix-la-Chapelle, Handel was fully recovered. He went back to London and not only returned to composing, but made a comeback at playing the organ as well. Six years later, Handel suffered a second springtime stroke. However, he stunned audiences once again with a speedy recovery, followed by a prolific stream of ambitious oratorios. Handel’s three-act oratorio Samson, which premiered in London in 1743, reflected how Handel related to the character’s blindness through his own firsthand experience with the progressive degeneration of his sight: Total eclipse! no sun, no moon. All dark amidst the blaze of noon. Oh glorious light!

no cheering ray To glad my eyes with welcome day. By 1750, Handel had entirely lost sight in his left eye. He forged on, however, composing the oratorio Jephtha, which also contained a reference to obscured vision. In 1752 Handel lost sight in his other eye and was rendered completely blind. As always before, Handel’s passionate pursuit of music propelled him forward. He kept on performing and composing, relying on his sharp memory to compensate when necessary, and remained actively involved in productions of his work until his dying day. Death and Legacy On April 14, 1759, George Handel died in bed at his rented house at 25 Brook Street, in the Mayfair district of London. The Baroque composer and organist was 74 years old. Handel was known for being a generous man, even in death. Having never married or fathered children, his will divided his assets among his servants and several charities, including the Foundling Hospital. He even donated the money to pay for his own funeral so that none of his loved ones would bear the financial burden. Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey a week after he died.

Following his death, biographical documents began to circulate, and George Handel soon took on legendary status posthumously. During his lifetime, Handel composed nearly 30 oratorios and close to 50 operas. At least 30 of those operas were written for the Royal Academy of Music, London’s very first Italian opera company. He was also a prolific writer of orchestral pieces and concerti grossi. He is said to have made significant contributions to all of the musical genres of his generation. His most renowned work is the oratorio Messiah, written in 1741 and first performed in Dublin in 1742. In 1784, 25 years after Handel’s death, three commemorative concerts were held in his honor at the Parthenon and Westminster Abbey. In 2001 Handel’s home on Brook Street (from 1723 to 1759) became the site of the Handel House Museum, established in memory of his legendary life and works. Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us ! Citation Information

Question: Who composed ‘Water Music’ in 1717?
Answer: George Frederic Handel